Rare complete copy of the first edition, in the original German, of the greatest and especially the best-illustrated work on fortification of its day and the most important influence on Vauban, written by the German historian and architect Wilhelm Dilich (1571?-1650). The first and largest part, with far more than the nominal 300 illustration figures, is devoted to the fortifications themselves; the second part, with more than 110 illustration figures, is devoted primarily to castramentation (the arrangement of troops' quarters in camps) but also covers the arrangement of artillery, armaments and supplies; the construction of barracks, tents, tunnels, etc. The large folding plate shows the fortifications of the city of Strasbourg. Dilich's son Johann Wilhelm Dilich (1600-1657), engineer and city military architect of Frankfurt am Main, illustrated his father's manual, helped to edit it and is even said to have engraved the plates himself. Since the book contains about 80 leaves of text and about 430 leaves of illustrations, the son certainly deserves much of the credit for the book's success. It quickly became the authoritative work on the subject: "wundervollen Plänen und Ansichten ... die reichhaltigste und vielseitigste Arbeit de Zeit" (Jähns).
With minor browning in the text leaves, (mostly marginal) water stains in about 30 plates, another with a few small stains around the borders of the images and another with a faint browned patch, a small tear slightly affecting the border of one plate and a small hole not affecting the image in another, but generally in very good condition. One plate was creased before printing. The backstrip is slightly damaged at the head and the vellum slightly dirty, but the binding is otherwise good. Berlin Kat. 3526; Cockle 832; Jähns, pp. 1118-1120; VD17, 23:297056Z (4 copies).